The King of Vajrayana - Guhya-Samaja-Tantra and Buddhist Tantrism: Source critical studies and Literature

Abstract

The article deals with one of the most complex issues of Tantric spiritual movement - its first system of Anuttara-yoga-tantra (the Highest yoga) in Indian Buddhism of the 6 th -7 th centuries. The studies of Western Buddhologists are, as a rule, written in cooperation with Tibetan teachers, experts in traditional reproduction of Buddhist rituals, texts and practices. The author, not challenging the advantages of such an approach, raises a question whether it's possible today to «excavate» that cultural layer of Indian civilization belonging to the middle of the first millennium when large tantric spiritual movement has emerged in Buddhism, Hinduism and partly in Jainism. The question also is, in what measure this method which would possibly be called «archeology of culture» is applicable for reading Guhya-samaja-tantra. Could modern scholars comprehend the subject of the text, and understand theory and practices described in it, without sufficient leaning Tibetan legends and sacred teaching?